The Political Commitment in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney
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THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL "PROTECTIVE COLOURING" - THE POLITICAL COMMITMENT IN THE POETRY OF SEAMUS HEANEY BEING A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL BY ALAIN THOMAS YVON SINNER, BA APRIL 1988 PREFACE I came to Heaney's poetry through FIELD WORK, which I read for a seminar on contemporary British poetry when I was studying English at the University of Hull. At the time I knew nothing whatsoever about post-Yeatsian Irish poetry and so I was agreeably surprised by the quality of Heaney's work. Initially, it was not so much the contents of his poems, but the rhythms, the sound patterns, the physical immediacy of his poetry which I admired most. Accordingly, I concentrated on Heaney's nature and love poems. His political verse requires the reader to be more or less well informed about what was and still is going on in Northern Ireland and it was only gradually that I acquired such knowledge. After FIELD WORK, I read the SELECTED POEMS 1965-1975 and they became a kind of journey through the diverse aspects of Heaney's multi-faceted work. In the course of six years' research on Heaney I have come to study other poets from Ulster as well and, though I still feel that Heaney is the most promising talent, it seems to me that Ireland is once again making a considerable contribution to English literature. Heaney is definitely on his way to becoming a major poet. The relevance of his work is not limited to the Irish context; he has something to say to ENGLISH ' ********************************************************* 1 1 A1-1-i 1988 Summary of Thesis submitted for PhD degree by Alain T.Y. Sinner on "Protective Colouring" The Political Comm i tment in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney ********************************************************* There is a tension in Seamus Heaney's poetry between his desire to escape from the Northern Troubles into a private domestic world, and the political responsibilities he has towards his Catholic com- , munity. He tries to reconcile the demands of politics and art by concealing his political message below the protective colouring of analogy, metaphor and parable. This technique is evident even in his first collections. In his second book Heaney opens a door into the dark and discovers the bog as a storehouse of the past, a memory bank with resurrectionary powers. The bog myth establishes an analogy between fertility sacrifices in Iron Age Denmark and sectarian murders in contemporary Ulster. The language and place-name poems of Wintering Out illustrate Hea- ney's ecumenical stance in that they merge Irish and English ele- ments - a reconciliation on the linguistic level foreshadowing a possible political reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics. In North Heaney wavers between an oblique approach to politics (in the bog poems, the Viking analogies, the sexual metaphors) and a more explicit documentary verse in part II. In Exposure he adopts protective colouring to avoid too obvious a political commitment. Field Work is eleg iac in tone and focuses on individual suffer- ing. Analogies with Dante stress the need for a rite of healing ca- pable of breaking the lethal cycle of terror and counter-terror. On his pilgrimage to Station Island Heaney becomes aware of con- flicting influences and, adopting the protective colouring of Swee- ney, he attempts to fly free of all obligations and to "strike his own note". Cont'd... The parables of The Haw Lantern document a more realistic assess- ment of the political evolution in the North and of the poet's po- litical influence. Heaney still advocates reconciliation and his metaphorical verse seems to be the most satisfactory way of respond- ing to the Crisis. April 1988 (297 words) - iv - the whole of mankind. Therefore he is not a local poet, but a man whose work ought to be appreciated by a larger audience than Ireland and Britain can offer. Although this thesis is exclusively concerned with Seamus Heaney's political commitment, the poetical and aesthetic qualities of his verse and, the beauty of his non-political nature and love poems should not be neg- lected. An appreciation of that "private" part of his temperament requires a study of its own. - v - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank all the people who have helped and encouraged me while I was writing this study. I owe particular thanks to my supervisor, Dr Bruce Woodcock, who introduced me to Seamus Heaney's poetry and whose generous assistance and advice have been invalu- able. I also wish to thank my parents without whose moral support this study could never have been written. This thesis is dedicated to them. A. S. April 1988 - vi - CONTENTS Preface iii Acknowledgements v Contents vi A Note on the Text vii Errata viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: "Death of a Naturalist" 12 Chapter 2: "Door into the Dark" 33 Chapter 3: "Wintering Out" 50 A Note on "Stations" 102 Chapter 4: "North" 111 Chapter 5: "Field Work" 195 A Note on "An Open Letter" 228 Chapter 6: "Station Island" 236 Chapter 7: "The Haw Lantern" 310 Conclusion 350 Bibliography 359 Index 371 A NOTE ON THE TEXT The page references in parentheses refer to the Faber editions of Seamus Heaney's works listed in the biblio- graphy. The following abbreviations have been used: DN Death of a Naturalist DD Door into the Dark WO Wintering Out S Stations N North FW Field Work P Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978 OL An Open Letter SI Station Island SWA Sweeney Astray HL The Haw Lantern The footnotes give full bibliographical details only for publications not listed in the bibliography. Those listed are referred to by name of author, title and page refer- ence only. ERRATA p. 14, 1. 9: read "The" instead of "the" p. 69, 1.16: read "And the" instead of "Andthe" p.144, 1. 9: read "polit-/ical" instead of "poli-/tical" p.158, 1. 3: read "is" instead of "has" p.171, 1. 4: read "re-/sponsible" instead of "res-/ponsible" p.189, 1.16: read "without" instead of "withour" p.212, 1. 4: read "himself" instead of "hinself" p.242, 1. 9: cancel "against" p.243, 1.11: read "Chekhov" instead of "Chekhon" p.255, 1. 8: read "sec-/tarian" instead of "sect-/arian" p.3o6, 1.27: read "chapel" instead of "chaple" p.3o8, 1.13: read "propria" instead of "propia" p.324, 1.21: read "encourage" instead of "enourage" p.363, 1.25: read upp.368-79" instead of "pp.369-79" - 1 - "THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS"* POETRY AND POLITICS IN IRELAND Our hearts starred with frost Through countless generations Derek Mahon (1) The history of Ireland is a history of invasions, oppression, injustice and suffering. Hibernia had never been under Roman occupation and thus its Gaelic culture was left to flourish peacefully. It may have been this fact and the conversion of the Gaels to Christianity by St. Patrick, who arrived in 432, that led to the Golden Age of the Gaelic-Christian civilization in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. But while Irish missionaries were taking the light of Christianity to a Continent that was only slowly recovering from Barbarian invasions, Vikings began to raid the coasts of Ireland itself. In 1014 a decisive battle between the Gaels and the Vikings (who, incidentally, had Irish allies) brought victory to the Irish. But Brian Boru, the High King, was killed in the victorious battle of Clontarf. "Christ's champion, King Brian, was the passive sacri- * a line from Song (FW,..p.56). 1 From Derek Mahon, North Wind: Portrush, in: The Hunt by Night, Oxford: OUP,1982,_ p.13. — 2 — ficial victor, a leader who refused to fight on the holy day and was struck down in the moment of victory by Brodir, Odin's defeated hero. Brian Boru was one of the first of Ireland's lost leaders" (2). This victory over the Norsemen became a symbol of national identity for the Irish (3). The Battle of Clontarf also announced a future of invasions. Not always was Ireland to have a royal hero like Brian Boru. Often enough in subsequent centuries was it to stand alone, left defenceless to the greedy hands of foreign invaders. Finally, Clontarf was important be- cause Brian Boru did not only fight against the Vikings. They were supported by Irish allies, a pattern which was to be repeated more than once in the history of Ireland, the inner-Irish quarrels contributing to the progressive loss of independence and national identity. It was such a conflict between Dermot Macmurrough, the King of Leinster, and his High King that brought Strong- bow, the Earl of Pembroke, and his Normans to Ireland in 1170. In their wake came the troops of Henry II, King of England, and thus began a series of English attempts to lay hands on Ireland. From the arrival of Henry II in 1171 to the Act of Union of 1800, Ireland was to come more and more under Eng3ish and later British domination. The . history of Ireland is not only a history of de- feat, it is also a history of resistance. From the Kildare rebellion against Henry VIII in 1534 to the 2 Seamus Heaney, Celtic Fringe, Viking Fringe, p.254. 3 Cf. Rene Frechet, Histoire de l'Irlande, Paris: PUF,. 1981,. p.21: "Cette victoire,. acquise au prix de sa vie,.devait devenir pour les Irlandais symbole d'unite natio- nale et d'independance." - 3 - Easter Rising, the English domination of the country kept being challenged, not only by the Gaelic part of the population, but also, as in the case of the Kildare re- bellion, by the very people who were supposed to repre- sent royal authority in Ireland.